It ain't easy being green.

It's been just over a week since I put "Kermit The Hog" on the road an as for teaching problems, it hasn't been too bad. 

The biggest issue I had was that when I put the motor under load ( being rubber mounted ) it would pull itself to the wheel , shortening the chain. Then the chain would skip over the sprocket, that's not good. 

So I made this engine brace . It's mounted on two Rose joints one near the the axle the other on the swim arm mount ( which is on the engine) 

The engine can still move up and down but not back. This has sorted the issue. 

Then I got the carb set up on a dyno. I took it to Tiverton motorcycles. Once they had finnished cursing its length , thay had to let all the air out of the front tyre to gain a little bit more to fit it. But once set up it now produces 72BHP and 80Lbs Torque, topped out at 118 mph ( you'd have to be feckin mental to do that in to present hrdtail bouncy state ) That's  really good for a standard motor Sportster. That engine has been riden hard from day one and it's done it good. 

It pulls real clean now and rides well for a long bike with a square rear tyre. Going slow is a bit scary eg crawling through traffic , but the rest of the time it's bloody ace. 

June I'll be riding it through Froggy land into Espana 

Aug me and Mrs oily will be hooking up with the tall Dutchman Shovelpower, and riding to Sweden. 

Your probly sick of hearing and looking at my bike. Tough shit you'll be seeing and hearing a lot more about it in the future . 

But as compensation here is some other food for your Eyeballs . 

All 3 photos stolen from http://www.chemicalcandycustoms.com/

Wayyyy . I love the lack of respect for the proper PPE 

Above is from Meredith Divine photography 

Cone shovel is my next love. 

Since I have started building my bike , my appreciation of lairey 70s paint has become huge. Now black just don't cut it anymore . 

Come on people now , smile on your brother . Everybody get together and love one another right now.

A fitting lyric for a psycadelic , trippy 70's (ignore the 09 engine) style Sweedish Chop. 

Tuesday I got my tank back from Tamsin , the airbrusher. What a bloody ace job she did. 

So I pissed around with the ( in-tank ) fuel pump, well I unbolted it and drilled some holes in the feed, it still had the fuel level sensor in there so I wired that up to a LED. I know it's more "Chopper " to have no fuel gage and to sit on the side of a road with no fuel whilst some poor sod drives to a petrol station to get you some (Richie)

WHOOOOOO. HALUSAJENERIC FLASHBACK TIME. 

My S&S Carb arrived on Thursday so I ripped it open like an excited child and ran down the shed with it. 

I had to trim 10 MM off of a couple of cylinder fins so that I could poke a screw , to bolt the carb on from the other side. 

ITS ALIVE

It's running rich but it runs. I'll get it set up soon , but I've just been pooteling up and down the lane trying to get some teething issues ( which are very little) sorted. 

The 1st issue was that I forgot to tighten my headlight so it fell off and I rode over the ring that holds it on. I bent it back into shape and I'm gunna leave it a bit marked as it'll remind me what a cock I was to not check it. 

I also had to space out the sprocket as the chain was hitting the wheel and let some air out of the rear tyre to stop me being bounced off of the bike. 

How does it ride. 

It takes a bit of brute force to steer it but I'm used to it already so it's all good. 

MOT next week. 

Look out Planet Earth...